Protector
by Sevenstars
Summary: Companion piece to "Heart of the Home." A convalescent Slim ponders what Jess did to save him.


**Protector**

_by Sevenstars_

SUMMARY: A sort of tag to "The Fugitives," and companion piece to "Heart of the Home," with Slim mulling over what Jess did to save him. Beta'd by Lisa.

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It's tough on him, every time anything like this happens. Probably always will be.

I remember the night he first told me about the way he lost his family—his pa and "the littl'uns," his brothers and sister, none of them even eight years old yet. _They died and I lived, _he said,_ and I reckon I'll carry the guilt of that failure to my grave._

I wish the folks who think of him as a cold-hearted gunslinger—or even as a man who's not exactly cold, but just, in a hard way, a man they respect, maybe even admire, but don't really know—could see how he is when he knows one of us is in danger. Especially when he figures it's up to him to save us... or if he thinks it's his fault.

And he's always so ready to assume that guilt, just as he was ready to assume it for the littl'uns. Even though there was nothing he could've done for 'em, half dead from the smoke and with his house blazin' like a bonfire... Francie told me that, when she and Ben were here; it's why she hauled him back.

Maybe that's part of why he's so doggedly devoted to keepin' us safe—just self-defense, because he knows he couldn't survive another loss like that one. Because if ever the time comes when he can't save one of us... well, I just hope it never does. Because that guilt will eat him up alive, piece by piece, and destroy him.

Nobody should ever have to lose even one family. But two? That _is _too much to ask.

He's a good man. Often he doesn't act as if he believes it, but he is—one of the best I've ever known.

My pard, with his unshakeable loyalty and his stubborn way of stickin' to a job till it's done, even if he half kills himself in the process.

And—yes, I admit it—sometimes his much too impulsive way of doin' the first thing that comes into his head.

He socked Mort. I still can't believe it.

And yet... and yet, I can't say I'm really surprised. Because that's Jess. He's not a planner; he admits it. He leaves that to me. He just plows right ahead and improvises as he goes along. The fact is, it usually works pretty well for him; it's saved his life time and again, like when that posse took him down in Colorado, for Frank Gorman's murder. It's almost as if the sheer impulsiveness of what he does is what saves him—like nobody ever expects him to take such a foolhardy chance.

And somehow I can't be angry with him either. Maybe there was some other way he could have handled it, but not half crazy with worry and fear, like he must have been. If I'm honest with myself, I have to admit, I don't know how else he'd have found me in time, hurt the way I was, and with all the sign washed out by that toad-strangler we had.

How can you be angry with a man for savin' your life?

I should lay into him for breakin' Greevy out, I know I should... but I won't. He doesn't need me to. He knows it was wrong, he doesn't need any of my blame on top of his own. He doesn't need me to be his conscience. He's got a perfectly good one of his own. That's why he's never been a—a stone killer, like so many in his line. Never really been in danger of it, though there are times he behaves as if he thinks so.

That and his pride. Jess without his pride wouldn't be Jess any more.

Come to think of it, I guess sometimes the end has to justify the means, because if it didn't, what would be the point of resortin' to any means at all?

And he did tell me the truth, even if gettin' it out of him was like pullin' that bad tooth of Mort's.

They say two wrongs don't make a right. And yet, in the end, this wrong saved my life, saved the stolen money, saved Myra, took Greevy and his pals out of circulation for good.

Saved Jess too, though he didn't put it that way.

He tells Daisy there's "just two things he's afraid of—a decent woman, and bein' left afoot." But that's a joke, a tease. I'm surprised she's never caught onto it, especially after the way he dug his heels in about goin' to the dentist that time. Yeah, there's two things he's afraid of, all right. Dentists are one. The other's losin' his home here, or any of us who share it with him.

That would kill him, I think.

I need to take better care of myself, I guess. Watch my back better, at least, when I'm off by myself. I was pretty stupid, lettin' Greevy take me the way he did. I knew what he was, I should'a' kept more alert...

Four or five years ago, before Jess came, I'd never so much as thought of forgivin' an act like his, even at the cost of my own life. I guess I was pretty self-righteous back then, though I tell myself I had some reason, tryin' to bring Andy up right and to show the folks who bad-mouthed Pa that he couldn't have done what they said he did, not and raise a son as upright as I was.

Lord, that sounds... vain. But when you're twenty-five, twenty-six, and tryin' to save your home and salvage your family's good name and set a proper example for your kid brother, and especially when you've lost the girl you loved, that's the way you think. At least it was the way _I _thought.

He taught me different. Taught me you can be a strong man, a good man, true to yourself, without havin' to be so... stiff about it.

In a way, this wasn't too different from the first time we really butted heads—that time he made Andy lie for him, when Bishop was here. And for about the same reason, too: because he felt he had to protect us, and he didn't know how else to do it.

He left that time—the first time of so many. Nearly broke Andy's heart. But I forgave him the lie, and I can forgive him this. I _have_ forgiven it.

I think that's how he sees his job in this family. I may be—what did he say, "the reason everything's the way it is"—but Jess... he's our protector. Like a half-wolf sheepdog that's somehow learned to guard a flock. And he'll risk anything—his safety, his life, his peace of mind, even his security in this new life he's found—if he thinks that's what he has to do. He'll risk losin' his home, break his own code, because to him nothing—not even his honor, his own self-image—matters as much as we do. He'll suffer and agonize over it, he'll doubt and second-guess himself, but if it's for our sakes he'll do it. He'll give till he has literally nothing left, but he'll never stop, never quit.

It's humbling, to know you're that important to someone, and especially to someone with Jess's kind of reputation.

I need to let him know I understand that. And appreciate it.

What would we ever do without him? And it's not just about the risks he takes for us. It's about everything he's brought to this place. A sense of youth and life and humor. A love of the land that goes beyond even Pa's. A helping hand—and a siding gun—I know I can always depend on. A man who had so big a part in raisin' himself that somehow he seems to know by instinct how to answer some of Mike's biggest questions. An unselfish, totally accepting love. No matter what we do, he'll never give up on us. Givin' up isn't in him—except maybe on himself, when he gets really down. But least of all on his family.

I wonder, sometimes, how we happened to deserve such a gift. How it happened that it was this place he rode into that day.

And I'm so incredibly thankful, so grateful, that he did.

There's the door, he's back...

"_Daisy?"_

"_Yes, Slim?"_

"_Wound you send Jess in here when he's finished cleaning up? There's something I need to tell him..."_

-30-


End file.
